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Ibn Fadlān and the Land of Darkness: Arab Travellers in the Far North

(Library of Arabic Literature)

Ahmad ibn Fadlān,

أحمد بن فضلان,

Paul Lunde (Translator),

Caroline Stone (Translator)

3.85 · Rating details · 1,725 ratings · 284 reviews

In 922 AD, an Arab envoy from Baghdad named Ibn Fadlan encountered a party of Viking traders on the upper reaches of the Volga River. In his subsequent report on his mission he gave a meticulous and astonishingly objective description of Viking customs, dress, table manners, religion and sexual practices, as well as the only eyewitness account ever written of a Viking ship ...more

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Paperback, 239 pages

Published December 1st 2011 by Penguin Classics (first published 921)

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Oct 31, 2020 Ian rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 4-star-non-fiction, history-sources, medieval-history, classics

Although only one name is mentioned in the book’s title, this is actually a collection of accounts written by medieval Arab travellers. There are two longer accounts and a number of shorter extracts.

Ibn Fadlȧn was part of an embassy sent in 921-22 by the Abbasid Caliph to the Khan of the Bulghȧrs, whose camp was located just south of the present day city of Kazan, on the Volga, which the Bulghȧrs called the Itil. As a representative of the Caliph, Ibn Fadlȧn displays certain attitudes of cultura Although only one name is mentioned in the book’s title, this is actually a collection of accounts written by medieval Arab travellers. There are two longer accounts and a number of shorter extracts.

Ibn Fadlȧn was part of an embassy sent in 921-22 by the Abbasid Caliph to the Khan of the Bulghȧrs, whose camp was located just south of the present day city of Kazan, on the Volga, which the Bulghȧrs called the Itil. As a representative of the Caliph, Ibn Fadlȧn displays certain attitudes of cultural superiority, but on the whole he isn’t that judgemental, and even admits sometimes to making a bit of a fool of himself. He comments that on his first sight of the Aurora Borealis:

“Frightened, we began to pray and beseech God most humbly, while the locals laughed at us and were astonished at our behaviour.”

The most valued part of his account is his description of a Viking ship funeral, held by the people called the Rūs, Swedish Vikings who eventually merged with the local Slavic population and gave their name to Russia. It’s a pretty gruesome affair, involving the killing of a number of animals and a slave girl who was chosen to die with her former owner. I will spare the reader some of the details.

The other of the longer works is by Abū Hȧmid Al-Andalusī, who travelled the same regions about two centuries later. His is a variable account, which can be entertaining when he displays his delight at items like skis, the size of the Volga and the fact that the river freezes solid in winter (“people even fight on it”). On the other hand, the reality of life at this time is brought home by his matter of fact description of buying two female slaves. One was about 15 and “had already borne a child” and the other was eight. “She had a child, but it died”. (Presumably this was at least a few years later). He eventually frees the girl, explaining that he wanted to keep her but thought she would be badly treated by his Turkish concubines at home, who had borne him other children.

The shorter accounts vary a lot in quality. For me the most interesting was that of Ibrȧhim ibn Ya’qūb, a Jewish merchant from Muslim Spain who in 965 visited the cities of Mainz, Schleswig and Prague, providing the very first descriptions of them. He notes that in Mainz it was possible to buy pepper, ginger, cloves and other spices imported from India, and he describes Prague as a city built in stone and lime, letting historians know these places were more economically advanced in the 10th century than would otherwise have been suspected.

The Rūs feature a lot in the shorter accounts, mainly in the context of sailing their ships down the Volga to raid towns located on the Caspian Sea. This initially took the inhabitants by surprise as they were not used to being attacked from the sea. The Arab chroniclers frequently mention being impressed by the size and ferocity of the Vikings, but note that they fight on foot. On open ground they seem to have been at a disadvantage against Arab cavalry.

Also described are the peoples of what is now Northwest Russia, whom the chroniclers call “Yūrȧ”. Merchants traded their goods with these natives in return for furs and “ivory” (narwal horn and walrus tusks). The natives are described as being “afraid of other men” and the trade is carried out by a curious sort of silent barter. I think the shyness of the natives was probably understandable caution about the prospect of being kidnapped into slavery.

This kind of book is only for people with an interest in history, but if you are in that category, I would certainly recommend this one. ...more

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Jun 15, 2014 E. G. rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, translated, 4-star, middle-east, own

List of Maps
Chronology
Introduction & Notes
Note on the Texts
Maps

Part I
--The Book of Ahmad ibn Fadlān, 921-922

Part II
--The Travels of Abū Hāmid al-Andalusī al-Gharnātī, 1130-1155

Part III: Passages from Other Geographers, Historians and Travellers
--1. Qudāma ibn Ja'far on Alexander in China, 928-932
--2. Ibn Khurradādhbih on Sallām the Interpreter and Alexander's Wall, 844
--3. Ibn Hayyān on the Viking attack on Seville, 844
--4. Zuhrī on Viking ships, c. 1160
--5. Ibn Khurradādhbih on the routes of th ...more

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Oct 02, 2018 Katia N rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

The book contains the accounts of Arab Islam Travellers in the land of Rus, Hungary,Khazar Khaganate in 9-13 centuries. Those accounts are not numerous and there are not many written sources at all from that region and the time. So the book lets us look at the people populating the waist territory of Siberia and Eastern Europe from the perspective of foreigners

The description of the Rus pagans - and their traditions are shocking and accurate. At that time, The Rus were the gangs of militarised ...more

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Feb 07, 2013 Andrada rated it it was amazing

Shelves: history-ancient, favorites

My father always claimed that the fall of Europe into the Dark Ages was due to the rise of Christianity, but after reading Ibn Fadlan and the other various travellers' accounts of Eastern Europe and the Far East in the 9th-10th and later centuries, it seems to me Europe(or at least its Eastern and Northern expanses) was in darkness before Christianity ever came along. Somehow I doubt that the condition of peoples such as the Saqaliba, Rus, Wisu etc as described in these accounts was any more ele ...more

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Sep 05, 2015 Wayfarer rated it liked it

Shelves: classics, culture, travel

This is more than a 3 star rating and yet less than a 4 star.

An intriguing account of an Arab Muslim traveller to the northern climes - inclusive of some unique and harrowing eyewitness accounts which are not found elsewhere e.g. Viking funerary practices. The book is divided into three main parts, Parts 1 and 2 comprises of the travel accounts of ibn Fadlan and Abu Hamid respectively, the last part, Part 3 are excerpts from the various works of fellow Arabian/Muslim geographers, historians and ...more

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Dec 20, 2017 Edoardo Albert rated it really liked it

In the 10th century, an Arab traveller named Ahmad Ibn Fadlan went, as part of an embassy, from Baghdad into the far north, to visit the newly Muslim king of the Bulghars who lived on the Volga River where it flows into the Caspian Sea. On his return, he wrote an account of his journey that is remarkable for its precision, dispassion and curiosity. Ibn Fadlan was genuinely interested in the peoples and customs he encountered along the way, and went out of his way to find out more about them. The In the 10th century, an Arab traveller named Ahmad Ibn Fadlan went, as part of an embassy, from Baghdad into the far north, to visit the newly Muslim king of the Bulghars who lived on the Volga River where it flows into the Caspian Sea. On his return, he wrote an account of his journey that is remarkable for its precision, dispassion and curiosity. Ibn Fadlan was genuinely interested in the peoples and customs he encountered along the way, and went out of his way to find out more about them. The most obvious example of this is how he set out to learn more about the burial customs of the pagan Rus (Vikings originally from Sweden), going to visit one of their settlements when he learned that one of the leaders there had died recently. His account of the burial is both remarkable and deeply troubling - and should give modern-day pagan fantasists pause. There is a tendency nowadays to ascribe a purer, simpler, more noble or more spiritual culture to pre-Christian pagan societies, such as Neil Young's idealisation of Moctezuma, king of the Aztecs, in Cortez the Killer. Ibn Fadlan's chilling description of the ritual sacrifice of one of the dead man's slave girls should be enough to make anyone rethink idealising pagan cultures.

Going on, the book also contains extracts from other Arab travellers. While none are as interesting as Ibn Fadlan, their varied testimonies add to a patchwork quilt of impressions of which, for me, the chief was the realisation of just how large a part the slave trade played in linking the economies of Asia, and in particular the links between the Caliphate and the pagan cultures of the steppes. Much of war was, in fact, slave taking expeditions, with a huge market waiting for the captured slaves in the Islamic world and among the shot lived kingdoms of the steppes. But what is particularly eye opening for the modern reader is how women and girls were such a significant part of this trade. Slaving expeditions would raid neighbouring tribes, capturing young women and girls, and these would be sold on as concubines to rich and powerful men in the Islamic world. One of the other writers in the book, Abu Hamid, notes in passing how he buys two slave girls, ages 8 and 15, and gives them various jobs before saying that one of them had a child but it died.

To put it bluntly, in this world, women were currency: they were bought and sold and became the trophies that accompanied the worldly success of rich and powerful men. Modern-day feminists have little use for Christianity, but that religion's refusal to countenance concubinage contributed more to the decline of the trafficking of women than any of other factor. ...more

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May 28, 2014 uh8myzen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: history, non-fiction, travel-literature

For those interested in Viking history, Ibn Fadlan's writings, like most Arabic writers who encountered them, are far more objective and more intimate than the European writings which were coloured by the Christian anti-pagan hysteria of the period and the need to propagandize against an invading enemy. That's not to say that the Arabic writers were not looking through the lens of their own faith, but their accounts of the Viking culture tend to be far more objective than that of Medieval Europe ...more

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Jul 25, 2014 Mehmet Akif Koç rated it liked it

A valuable source especially for trade relations between the north of the Caspian basin, Transoxia and Muslim Arab world. Also the careful observations of Ibn Fadlan and Abu Hamid al-Andalusi on Turkic states/tribes such as Khazars, Bulgars, Guzzs (Oghuzzs) and Bashgirds provide useful information, although reveal an 'arrogant Arab-Orientalist approach' towards the Pagan and new Muslim-Turkish tribes... ...more

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Aug 25, 2020 Yousif Al Zeera rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction

The book sheds light on the journey of Ahmed ibn Fadlān with some of his companions from Baghdad to Russia - crossing several countries in between. It speaks of how certain customs/traditions of the 'West' were strange (and even shocking) to Ahmed who obviously comes from an Islamic background - but without negative commentary.
...more

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Apr 11, 2021 Elizabeth R. rated it really liked it

As someone new to this subject, I ended up experiencing this book along a couple of parallel tracks.

First of all: if you are new to this subject – Read the Appendices First! I jumped forward and read them when I was almost finished with the narratives, and wish I had done so much earlier.

The book is divided into several parts:

Intro materials: Chronology pages, Introduction (we would even say, read the Appendices before the Introduction), various Notes, several pages of Maps

Part I: The Book of A ...more

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Apr 29, 2019 Phrodrick rated it it was ok · review of another edition

The story goes that Michael Crichton came across Ibn Fadlan’s The book of Ibn Fadlan’s travels and read about his travels among the various tribal kingdoms in 10th century Eastern Europe. In it he read what is believed to be the oldest and most completed description of the Viking Funeral. From the reading of this story he imagined his first widely popular book, The Eaters of the Dead.

I greatly admired the Crichton re-imagining of the Beowulf story. So I was very eager to read the book that got The story goes that Michael Crichton came across Ibn Fadlan’s The book of Ibn Fadlan’s travels and read about his travels among the various tribal kingdoms in 10th century Eastern Europe. In it he read what is believed to be the oldest and most completed description of the Viking Funeral. From the reading of this story he imagined his first widely popular book, The Eaters of the Dead.

I greatly admired the Crichton re-imagining of the Beowulf story. So I was very eager to read the book that got Crichton inspired. In this Penguin Classic, Ibn Fadlanss work takes up about 1/3 of this collection, Ibn Fadlan and the land of Darkness; Arab travelers in the Far North. For the rest translated and edited <?> together by Paul Lunde and Caroline Stone is another 40ish pages of 13th Century of Arab traveler Aba Hamid al-Andalust and 100 pages of snippets, sometimes no more that a partial paragraph of another 41 Arab travelers, historians or chroniclers. The result is repetitious, flat and dull. One suspects a sanitized academic style translation. It feels too thrown together to hold the attention of any but the most determined reader.

In the two longer selections it is possible to get a sense of the reporting traveler. Neither writer has a graceful style. Subjects appear in a paragraph with no obvious connection and topics read more like random collections. There are enough pages so that one can get an idea of the mind behind the words. The regions being reported upon are peoples of Europe with no idea of a common connection, culture or religion. The Rus are not yet the Russians. The various tribes and kingdoms do not have names most of use ever studied in any Western Civ class. No Gaul nor Visigoths nor yet any Hungarians or Germans. The problem being that it can be very disorienting. Even with the many foot notes giving more modern place names it can be too much work to place a name or name a place such that you have a clue where in Europe which tribe maintains its fluid borders,

After the two longer selections the bits and pieces do not seem to follow any organizing principle. No chronological or geographic order is manifest. Selections can be 3 sentences of this Arab writer and maybe 2 pages of another. None selected for its unique or enthralling point of view. ...more

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Jan 18, 2014 sajjad rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history, geography, itinerary

As I have understood:

This is a short book written by Ahmad Ibn Fadlan, about his mission on religious and cash supports to the King of Slavs, from Caliph of Islamic world.

He and 4 other started this travel from Baghdad to Balkan. Their journey had been a very hard one because of the cold weather of northern areas and different tribes. Hi is very good in describing the people he had visited and their habits, a literal detailed one. The scene of a funeral is such described that has been painted by ...more

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Apr 15, 2008 Art rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Mar 17, 2014 Simon Jones rated it really liked it

This book actually comprises an extensive collection of accounts by Arabic writers of journeys in the lands of the north of which ibn Fadlan's is the longest. It dispels some misconceptions by showing how interconnected the early Medieval world was through trade and diplomacy and how open minded and curious Muslims of the period could be about the cultures around them. The writings contain both observations of the everyday life of the peoples of the north and tales of the fantastical inhabitants ...more

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Oct 14, 2020 Elin Eriksen rated it it was ok

Shelves: research, 2020none-jaff

I read this as research of the Vikings but I am rather disappointed. I will stick to the Saga's and archaeological sources...

A difficult read in more ways than one. I struggled to understand which part of the world they were visiting and what people they were describing. Google could not help me with some of the medieval Arabic names.
The stories were contradictory, not only between the different travellers but within each one and archaeological sources. For instance: the rus lived in a country ...more

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Nov 09, 2017 Adam rated it really liked it

Shelves: history, the-medieval-world, far-corners

Includes the Book of Ahmad Ibn Fadlan, The Travels of Abu Hamid al-Andalusi al-Gharnati and a series of a few dozen excerpts from other Arab geographers, historians and travellers (plus passages from a Jewish merchant, Marco Polo and a Russian chronicle, for some reason).

Ibn Fadlan's book is the best. Classic adventure stuff, an embassy to a newly converted khan on the Volga. Fadlan strikes me as a bit of a crank, in a good way. He's great at complaining about the cold (from the familiar 'we wor Includes the Book of Ahmad Ibn Fadlan, The Travels of Abu Hamid al-Andalusi al-Gharnati and a series of a few dozen excerpts from other Arab geographers, historians and travellers (plus passages from a Jewish merchant, Marco Polo and a Russian chronicle, for some reason).

Ibn Fadlan's book is the best. Classic adventure stuff, an embassy to a newly converted khan on the Volga. Fadlan strikes me as a bit of a crank, in a good way. He's great at complaining about the cold (from the familiar 'we wore so much winter gear we couldn't move' to the poetic 'we forgot all that happened to us in the past and almost perished'). He encounters tons of new tribes and describes their barbarous customs, but doesn't really take offence at anything or try to change anyone. Although he's got tons of contempt for the Rus. He's also self-effacing, recording for posterity Almish's sarcastic remarks about him. There's an account of a viking funeral, and a description of the Northern Lights and a first encounter of the problem of shorter daylight hours for Muslims.

Abu Hamid is more interested in 'wonders' and it's overall not as interesting. Though his stuff on Gog and Magog and Alexander the Great is okay. There's one particular passage that's revolting, where he buys slave girls, fifteen and eight years old, he he gives them jobs 'purifying honey and extracting wax' but then notes a paragraph later that one of them 'had a child, but it died'. He frees them because he doesn't think they'll get along with his harem back home.

The excerpts are all over the place. The Viking raids are fun and there's a fantastic one called 'Miskawayh on the Rūs raid on Bardha‘a 943' which has it all: Vikings sacking along the Caspian, occupy a town in Azerbaijan. The Muslims declare jihad, and there's also a Christian negotiation that goes bad, Kurdish volunteer troops who fight in a snowstorm, and an epic last stand. But then there are other excerpts that are just about the fur trade or whatever.

The two tribes that keep getting described are the Rus and the Khazars, both equally fascinating. The Rus are what we call Vikings, and the Khazars are a Turkish tribe whose ruling class at one point converted en masse to Judaism. Wild.

Best bits:
From Ibn Fadlan:
The Khwarazmians: (view spoiler)

On being cold: (view spoiler)

The Ghuzz Turks: (view spoiler)

Caravan held up by a beggar: (view spoiler)

The Bāshghirds eat lice and fleas: (view spoiler)

And carry a wooden phallus: (view spoiler)

Description and contempt for the Vikings: (view spoiler)

Honey: (view spoiler)

Conversion: (view spoiler)

From Abu Hamid
On beavers, who keep slaves: (view spoiler)

From various travellers:
Rus medicine men: (view spoiler)

On the Khazars: (view spoiler)

Some real Prokofiev/Alexander Nevsky type stuff: (view spoiler)

It would have been awful to live through, but there's something insanely thrilling about viking raids: (view spoiler)

Muslims defeat Rus: (view spoiler)

From the appendix, Arab traders used silent barter at the edges of their trading networks, which extended from subarctic fur traders to Niger and Sri Lanka! (view spoiler) ...more

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Mar 21, 2019 Cody rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Exciting accounts of overlooked areas of the early middle ages across Eurasia, insights into shared Islamic conceptions of history and geography during the period at the intersection of folklore and firsthand experience. Provides some of history's first written accounts of cities like Prague, drawing them into a factual picture of their integration into the global economic systems of the time and so containing the potential to upend ethnonationalist assumptions about Europe's history. Excellent ...more

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Jul 22, 2018 Oğuz Tutal rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Rate may changes based on your expectations. The details and context are facile. However, author never claimed more than the translation of the original manuscript. You can find an interesting information regarding these old days in terms of living conditions, phenotypes and relationship among tribes(especially for turks and bulgarians)

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Jun 18, 2018 Stephanie Jane rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history, travel

See more of my book reviews on my blog, Literary Flits

I feel very privileged to be able to read such ancient texts as Ahmad Ibn Fadlan's travel memoir and the other writings that make up this volume. Even in translation - and I think Lunde and Stone have done a brilliant job here - the Arabic travellers' voices shine through and it is fascinating to think that Ibn Fadlan's account was written eleven centuries ago! I was already aware of Danish Vikings invading and settling in the UK and Ireland, ...more

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Oct 27, 2020 Liam Guilar rated it really liked it

Shelves: four-queens

Probably essential reading for anyone who thinks 'vikings' were glamourous. It's not so much the (in)famous description of the funeral, but Ibn Fadlan's bemused/shocked descriptions of their everyday practices that provide the necessary balance to the hollywood version.

'They are the filthiest of God's creatures. They do not clean themselves after urinating or defecating, nor do they wash after having sex. They do not wash their hands after meals. They are like wandering asses'.

However, his narr ...more

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Sep 15, 2020 Nathan Rubene dos Santos rated it really liked it

Shelves: travel-literature

From staidly Baghdad, center of compiled scholarly knowledge and Islamic civilization during the Early Middle Ages, to the frontiers of fantasy, the Arab voyagers of the 9th to 13th century took their part in the Herculean effort to make sense of the four corners of the global through empirical, first-hand investigation, though none could overcome the liminal bond between fact and speculative fiction. Geographic 'marvels' of antiquity are rehashed and given new twists, such as the biblical story ...more

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Mar 21, 2022 Matal Baker rated it it was amazing

Despite the fact that this book’s title is a misnomer, IBN FADLAN AND THE LAND OF DARKNESS: ARAB TRAVELERS IN THE FAR NORTH is an excellent historical source for anyone interested in Eastern Europe.

This book includes a hodgepodge of ancient travel writing, featuring primarily Arab Muslim writers. Of particular interest are the references to and descriptions of the ancient Viking Swedes who migrated to Southeastern Europe..

This book is a great source for anyone interested in the ancient people ...more

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Dec 17, 2017 Blake rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: unconventional-horror, memoir, read-this-so-we-can-talk-about-it, history, the-occult

A quick read and not exactly narrative, this book nonetheless features incredible details of mediaeval societies living on the edge of the beyond - northern people, customs, and climates just outside the reach of the contemporary civilized imagination circa 922 CE, namely that of the Arabic Muslims living in places like Baghdad and Cordoba, then the two richest and most literate cities west of China.

If you've ever wondered what Vikings looked like to the people they'd trade their slaves with, o ...more

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Jul 30, 2020 Liene rated it it was amazing

This book and the history behind it is mind-blowing!

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Aug 16, 2020 Daniele rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: travel

Interesting 1,000 years old travel notes.

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Nov 04, 2019 isabelle rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, school

it was kind of long. I made a presentation on it and compared him to modern travel vloggers though so that was fun. he seems like a cool dude

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Feb 18, 2021 Paulo Jan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Historical accounts as reliable as this are very striking.
The book is the direct translation of an Arabic manuscript into Portuguese and describes a long journey through Eurasia, under curious and accurate observation.
It is short, I read in one day, because the original material is brief in itself (does not report the trip back) but very rich.
The end point of the trip is the current Russian republic of Muslim majority, Tatarstan - at the time Volga Bulgaria, already inhabited by Slavic Muslim ...more

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Feb 25, 2020 Miike rated it really liked it

Shelves: travel-literature-classics

This is a very objective account of an embassy sent from the Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad to instruct the (Volga)Bulgars in matters of Islam. The journey takes in some of the most noteable tribes of the 11th century north of the Caspian and Black seas. He travels well into Russia which was in its infancy. He also travels across the Tundra to visit other semi nomadic tribes.

The account is very detailed and doesn't belittle or pour scorn upon other races - common at the time. It was fascinating to re ...more

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Dec 19, 2012 Chon Mkliiry rated it it was amazing

Wow! I just finished this. This book is scary, amazing and beautiful. Ibn Fadlan was an Arabic trader during the middle-ages. He is best known for crossing into the land of "Gog and Magog" (if you're reading the bible) or Yajuj and Majuj (if you're reading the Koran.) He, of course, didn't find Gog and Magog. Ibn Fadlan did, however, find many new and novel groups of civilization. He encounters the Ghuzz, Bulghars, the Bhashgirds and the Rus. The Rus were the predecessors to the Vikings. Ibn Fad ...more

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Apr 28, 2012 Rich rated it liked it

Shelves: religion, history, post-law-school

Relative to other published travelers' historic accounts, the scholarship of Ibn Fadlan and Abu Hamid book is terrible. Their stories are more realistic than, say, Herodotus' stories, but they also convey less information. It's still has valuable information overall and it's interesting to see where early Arab travelers went and who they encountered. For example, they meet lots of peoples who still place Alexander the Great as the eminent character in their national mythology. The kingdoms east ...more

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About Ahmad ibn Fadlān

Ahmad ibn Fadlān

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هو أحمد بن العباس بن راشد بن حماد البغدادي، عالم إسلامي من القرن العاشر الميلادي . كتب وصف رحلته كعضو في سفارة الخليفة العباسي إلى ملك الصقالبة (بلغار الفولجا)سنة 921 م.

Ahmad ibn Fadlān ibn al-Abbās ibn Rāšid ibn Hammād (Arabic: أحمد بن فضلان بن العباس بن راشد بن حماد‎) was a 10th-century Arab traveler, famous for his account of his travels as a member of an embassy of the Abbasid Caliph of Baghd ...more

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Viikingit arabin silmin : "Ibn Fadlan" vuodelta 922 = Vikingarna i en arabs ögon : "Ibn Fadlan" från år 922 = Vikings through Arab eyes : "Ibn Fadlan" A.D. 922

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“...попали в страну народа из [числа] тюрок, называемого башкиры.
...
Каждый из них вырубает палочку величиной с фалл и вешает ее на себя. И если он захочет отправиться в путешествие или встретит врага, то целует ее, поклоняется ей и говорит "О господи, сделай для меня то-то и то-то". Я сказал переводчику: "Спроси кого-либо из них, какое у них оправдание этому [действию] и почему он сделал это своим господом?" Он [спрошенный] сказал: "Потому что я вышел из подобного этому и не знаю относительно самого себя иного создателя.” — 0 likes

“IBN FADLĀN Ibn Fadlān and the Land of Darkness Arab Travellers in the Far North Translated with an Introduction by PAUL LUNDE and CAROLINE STONE” — 0 likes

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